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December 20, 2013

[In a sharply worded retort Thursday, the Indian External Affairs Ministry said there was “only one victim in this case” — Khobragade, whose treatment it said violated the Vienna Convention and the normal courtesies due a diplomat. The ministry’s statement also blasted Bharara’s “remarks about equality before the law of both the rich and the poor,” saying that his “rhetorical” comment was “not conducive to resolving ‘inaccuracies.’ ”]

NEW DELHI — A major diplomatic row between the United
States and India took a new turn Thursday as signs of a split emerged within
the U.S. government over how to handle the case of an Indian diplomat and
women’s rights advocate who was arrested in New York on charges stemming from
the alleged exploitation of her nanny.

The Indian
government, meanwhile, demanded that U.S. federal prosecutors drop their case
against Devyani Khobragade, 39, India’s up-and-coming deputy consul general in
New York and the mother of two young daughters.

As the dispute
festered and outrage in India mounted over Khobragade’s arrest last week on
visa fraud charges and her subsequent treatment by U.S. authorities, Secretary
of State John F. Kerry made a conciliatory call to India’s national security adviser
Wednesday and “expressed his regret” over the incident, according to the State
Department.

But the Justice
Department appeared to be taking a harder line. Preet Bharara, the Indian-born
U.S. attorney in Manhattan who is prosecuting the case, issued a blistering
statement denouncing “misinformation” about the charges against Khobragade and
vowing to “uphold the rule of law, protect victims, and hold accountable anyone
who breaks the law — no matter what their societal status and no matter how
powerful, rich or connected they are.”

In a sharply worded
retort Thursday, the Indian External Affairs Ministry said there was “only one
victim in this case” — Khobragade, whose treatment it said violated the Vienna
Convention and the normal courtesies due a diplomat. The ministry’s statement
also blasted Bharara’s “remarks about equality before the law of both the rich
and the poor,” saying that his “rhetorical” comment was “not conducive to
resolving ‘inaccuracies.’ ”

At a lunch with
reporters in New Delhi on Thursday, Indian External Affairs Minister Salman
Khurshid said that the criminal case against Khobragade should be dropped. He
said he planned to speak to Kerry later in the day and would bring up the
matter with him.

“We are not
convinced that there is a legitimate legal ground for pursuing this case,”
Khurshid said. Khobragade may not have paid her employee what she was owed, but
that did not justify “treating her like a common criminal,” the minister said.

With tempers
continuing to flare in India over the week-old dispute, small protests erupted
in cities such as Kolkata and Hyderabad, where students chanted anti-American
slogans and clutched signs that said, “Uncle Sam, don’t act ugly with India.”

The New Delhi
government has demanded an unconditional apology for the arrest and has
curtailed U.S. diplomats’ privileges and security measures in retaliation. And
Indian officials announced they were transferring Khobragade to their country’s
mission to the United Nations. The move, if approved, would give her full
immunity from other charges going forward.

The Indian diplomat
had already had prestigious postings in Pakistan, Italy and Germany. Last year,
as she prepared for an assignment in pricey New York, she decided to hire a
woman to accompany her, her husband and two daughters to perform child-care and
housekeeping chores.

Khobragade thought
she had found the right employee in a woman named Sangeeta Richard. U.S. labor
rules required that the nanny be paid $9.75 an hour.

But U.S.
authorities allege that Khobragade drew up two contracts — one with the proper
amount and one with the actual amount to be paid (about $3.31 an hour for a
40-hour workweek, a wage that would often amount to much less because of longer
hours worked).

Khobragade was
dropping off one of her daughters at school last Thursday when agents of the
U.S. Diplomatic Security Service arrested her.

Later, she was
strip-searched and — she claims — cavity-searched by U.S. marshals; the
Marshals Service is charged with housing federal prisoners. Experts said that
was unheard-of treatment for a diplomat arrested by a friendly country. (A
spokeswoman for the agency says that Khobragade was strip-searched, in
accordance with standard procedures, but no cavity search was performed.)

In a statement issued Wednesday, Bharara said:
“Khobragade was accorded courtesies well beyond what other defendants”
typically receive. “She was not, as has been incorrectly reported, arrested in
front of her children. The agents arrested her in the most discreet way possible,
and unlike most defendants, she was not then handcuffed or restrained.”

The agents did not
seize her cellphone, as is customary, let her make numerous calls from their
car over a two-hour period “and even brought her coffee and offered to get her
food,” the Manhattan U.S. attorney said.

The statement said
Kobragade was “fully searched by a female deputy marshal — in a private setting
...
but this is standard practice for every defendant, rich or poor, American or
not.”

Khobragade “clearly
tried to evade U.S. law designed to protect from exploitation the domestic
employees of diplomats and consular officers,” Bharara said. “Not only did she
try to evade the law, but as further alleged, she caused the victim and her
spouse to attest to false documents and be a part of her scheme to lie to U.S.
government officials.”

He questioned
whether any government “would not take action regarding false documents being
submitted to it in order to bring immigrants into the country,” especially when
the purpose of the alleged scheme “was to unfairly treat a domestic worker in
ways that violate the law.”

He further wondered
“why there is so much outrage about the alleged treatment of the Indian
national accused of perpetrating these acts, but precious little outrage about
the alleged treatment of the Indian victim and her spouse?”

Bharara noted that
“there have been other public cases in the United States involving other
countries, and some involving India, where the mistreatment of domestic workers
by diplomats or consular officers was charged criminally.”

He said the second
contract with the nanny, which “was not to be revealed to the U.S. government,”
changed the payment to “far below minimum wage, deleted the required language
protecting the victim from other forms of exploitation and abuse, and also
deleted language that stated that Ms. Khobragade agreed to ‘abide by all
Federal, state, and local laws in the U.S.’ ” Morever, he said without
elaborating, “there are other facts regarding the treatment of the victim” that
caused U.S. authorities to take legal action.

Bharara also
sharply denounced what he described as legal retaliation against Richard’s family
in India in attempts “to silence her” and to compel her to return to the
country. As a result, he said, the family was brought to the United States.

“Some focus should
perhaps be put on why it was necessary to evacuate the family and what actions
were taken in India” against them, he said. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the
Justice Department “are compelled to make sure that victims, witnesses and
their families are safe and secure while cases are pending,” he said.

In its reply, the
Indian External Affairs Ministry said Bharara’s statement “incredibly ...
invites speculation about why it was necessary to evacuate the family of Ms.
Richards and about the action purportedly being taken against them.” It
denounced what it described as implicit criticism of the Indian legal system
and law enforcement authorities and asked “what right a foreign government has
to ‘evacuate’ Indian citizens from India while cases are pending against them.”

“When the legal
process in another friendly and democratic country is interfered with in this
manner, it not only amounts to interference but also raises the serious concern
of calling into question the very legal system of that country,” the ministry
said. It called the U.S. attorney’s statement “one more attempt at a post facto
rationalization for an action that should never have taken place in the first
instance.”

Khurshid, the
external affairs minister, later dismissed Bharara in an interview with the
news channel NDTV 24x7.

“As far as we’re
concerned, we deal not with him, we deal with the State Department and deal
with the secretary of state,” Khurshid said.

If found guilty
of visa fraud and making false statements on
a visa application, Khobragade could face 10 years in prison.

India’s national
security adviser, Shivshankar Menon, has called Khobragade’s treatment
“despicable and barbaric.”

Kerry, in his call
with Menon, said he “empathizes with the sensitivities we are hearing from
India,” a State Department statement said.

The secretary
“understands very deeply the importance of enforcing our laws and protecting
victims, and, like all officials in positions of responsibility inside the U.S.
government, expects that laws will be followed by everyone here in our
country,” it said. “It is also particularly important to Secretary Kerry that
foreign diplomats serving in the United States are accorded respect and dignity
just as we expect our own diplomats should receive overseas.”

At a briefing at
the State Department, deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf would not characterize the
conversation as an apology. She said the tone was “positive.”

Khobragade’s
lawyer, Daniel N. Arshack, said the State Department seemed willing to resolve
the case.

“I do believe,
based on Secretary Kerry’s statement, that he has demonstrated an interest in
having this case completely resolved,” Arshack said in an e-mail Thursday.

“The State
Department’s acknowledgement of immunity will put an end to this matter once
and for all,” he said.

Arshack said
Wednesday that the diplomat actually had submitted one contract to the U.S.
government, listing the proper salary for her domestic help, and had drawn up
another with the woman, to deduct money from her pay to be sent to support her
family in India.

Khobragade’s
relationship with Richard grew troubled about six months after she started
work. Arshack said the nanny asked whether she could work part time for other
clients, and then stole items and later disappeared in June.

Branigin reported
from Washington. Anne Gearan in Washington contributed to this report.